I recently attended a wedding at the Friendly Crossways and although I had a great weekend with family and friends, I think my perspective is different than most of the previous reviewers. As others mentioned there were no other options close by in the Harvard area to stay, so we decided to stay on site (even though I tried to find alternative arrangements). We arrived on Friday and found our room, which had only twin beds (the same for almost all rooms) but were yet to receive our linens (sheets/towels/pillow cases). We did get those later and as another reviewer mentioned they were very worn. You could also not bring in your own pillows or linens (as I had brought) and the party would be fined if they saw you doing so. The bathroom/showers which I saw were pretty outdated and dingy (except the ones near the front door which appear to be newer). They weren't unclean, but were just in desperate need of some TLC. We were also informed of a strict 5 minute shower policy which there are signs posted for in the bathroom. As most have said, it is very much a DIY venue, even so far as to washing your own dishes throughout the weekend. We did help out with a lot throughout the weekend which was fun helping our friends set up their wedding and be a part of it, but many times we would need to ask Mary or Keith (the owners of the property) for assistance or direction with a given task. Most of the time they were very friendly and helpful, but not all the time. I certainly understand they have a job to do, and tasks the Bride/Groom set up for them, and that helping me wasn't on their priority list, but at least be a little bit pleasant because we are paying you to be there. I would have to agree that the food they provided was excellent, and they were able to meet the needs of many dietary issues in our group. If I was reviewing only their food it would be 5 stars, no question. They used fresh ingredients and were very passionate about what came out of the kitchen. The other issue was the firewood. We were lectured that it was to be a "camp fire" and not a "bonfire". We were only provided with about 6 tiny pieces of wood to keep the fire going for our allotted 2 hours...and NO wood was to be put on after 11pm as the fire had to be completely out by midnight... It was nice to be able to just walk back to my room after the wedding/reception. The ceremony was beautiful set back under the trees on the lawn. If you are looking for a DIY wedding where you have to do just about everything for set up and break down then this is probably your place. read more

Friendly Crossways - Wedding area. - Party & Event Planning Near Me - Harvard, Massachusetts

We had our wedding at Friendly Crossways, about 30 guests. Friendly Crossways provided both the venue space and the catering, both were super huge parts in making our wedding day so perfect. Mary Helan was a breeze to work with, super quick to respond, so helpful and friendly. We had friends and family stay with us both before and after the wedding which was so special to have all at the venue location. THE FOOD!!! The cooks use fresh food from the garden right there, it was so soooo good and does not get any fresher than that! Everything was so seamless on our day, Mary Helan helped us with so many steps to make it all go so well. I would highly recommend this for anyone who wants to have a stunning outdoor venue with great food and people around you! read more

We booked Friendly Crossways as our wedding venue last year - we were so excited to have the beautiful grounds and entire farmhouse available to us and our guests for the entire weekend, and Mary Helan and Keith just gave us a great vibe - equal parts professional and personal! We are even happier now with our choice. When COVID began, the team at FC outlined several options for us. We chose to move ahead with our original date and dramatically downsize our guest list. Even though the wedding was definitely different from the one we had started to plan before the virus, we still had an amazing and safe wedding weekend. The team at Friendly Crossways was communicative, helpful, and so kind as we wrestled with so many unknowns during the planning process. I can't imagine going through the stress of planning a wedding during COVID without Mary Helan's guidance and kindness. And we still had a magical wedding weekend with amazing food and the cozy, family-oriented vibe we wanted. read more

Friendly Crossways was such a fabulous and unique venue for me and my husband's wedding this past August. It is a large, old farmhouse in Harvard, MA, surrounded by stunning grounds and a working farm. Mary Helan and Keith and their staff were attentive, flexible, and incredibly hardworking - honestly every detail of our wedding day went smoothly and better than I could have imagined. My favorite part of Friendly Crossways is that since it is a working hostel (we rent out the entire house for the wedding though), we could have 30 of our closest friends and family spend the entire weekend there with us. It was truly a dream come true!! read more

Where do I start.... first, we had our wedding here. Not only did Mary Helen had us believe that we would be in great hands, but she lied about almost everything she said she would do. When we first went to look at her venue, we fell in love. Mary and her husband seemed like great people, willing to help and cook our wedding meal for us. When we asked her about an estimate of wedding costs at her venue, she replied with 15k -18k. A month later, she quoted us 12,000 for food...... what? And it was the cheap food as well.... nothing fancy. They had promised to work with our menu choices and promised to do what we had asked. Every time we talked to them they would tell us "no we cant do that actually... we dont feel safe". When we decided not to go with her, she decided it would be okay to charge us 6 dollars per person coming to the wedding for not having her cater our wedding ON TOP of the 5,000 we had already paid for her venue. She started pulling fees out of everything. Had us clean the whole venue, and bossed our guests around. The week before, she decides she would charge us 3 dollars per person staying at her venue JUST TO EAT BRUNCH.... she did not even provide brunch for us. She was extremely rude even after the wedding while we were trying to clean up and it got our guests very upset. I only wish we could turn back time and chosen a different venue because these people are ridiculous. I dont often write reviews, but she made this whole experience very unpleasant to say the least. read more

My husband and I just had our wedding at Friendly Crossways. We had our families and a few friends spend the weekend with us and it was the perfect weekend for us all. We were able to be relaxed and Mary gave us the flexibility to make the weekend fit our personalities and do the food the way we wanted. Her husband Keith was also always there with a smile to make sure we had everything we needed. Mary catered an hors d'oevres reception before our ceremony. The raspberry goat cheese tarts were to die for and the table of crudites and crostini and toppings was beautiful. She made the presentation into a rainbow of delicious offerings, which everyone loved. I can't imagine another location that would have been such a relaxing wedding experience for us and our guests. read more

I got married at FC last weekend. I would recommend it to anyone willing to do a little bit of legwork on their own. The grounds are beautiful and Mary Helan is a wonderful, resourceful chef who uses a great deal of vegetables from her own farm. If you are into that sort of thing, which I am, you will be overjoyed. As part of the package, you can have people stay over in the hostel during the weekend. If your friends and family are the fun/laid-back type, you can't have a more fun scenario than FC. The other joy of FC is that the owners are not looking to gauge you when they hear the word 'wedding.' You are given a great deal of freedom if you are willing to put in some work. Beautiful place. read more

I have been a member of Hosteling International for a few years now and have stayed at several hostels in the U.S. and Canada. This is not the oldest HI American hostel for a reason - it is an immaculate, beautiful, calming and just plain wonderful place to stay. Imagine a converted family home and barn turned into a hostel with all the features that make it great for people seeking quiet and a look at a life that often escapes us. People gripe about its location - five miles from a train stay, 3.5 miles from the nearest general store, but isn't that the point? In my two days there, I saw no fast food - rather, I walked seven miles every day, back and forth, to the Harvard General Store to pick up groceries and enjoy the charming area. Mary Helan and her husband are wonderful hosts and you must buy some of her award-winning honey! read more

There aren't really any hotels in or around Harvard, so when friends booked their wedding at this retreat center my husband and I decided to stay on site. It has a cozy, woodsy feel... Akin to "glamping" but not akin to a hotel experience. Bathrooms are shared and double beds are few and far between. There's no way to lock most rooms. It's actually a hostel and I know they do retreats for nonprofits and religious church groups all the time. Friends got married under the apple tree in the fields outside. Very pretty! The reservation process was a little bit too casual (again, not a hotel!) and the linens grossed me out a little. But they only charge you $25-$60 to stay as a hostel guest and the facilities are adequate. Since there are no other hotel options nearby, I appreciated the fact that Friendly Crossways opens their doors to overnight guests. It could benefit from a linen overhaul for sure, but to do that they would have to charge a lot more money to guests. Oh well. read more

This is the first time I have not been disappointed by food prepared for more than 40 people at a time. It is as homecooked as it gets, fresh, delicious, and amazing. A huge bravo to the team - besides the conference I could always look forward to the tasty meals and desserts! A+++ would attend again, highly recommended intimate retreat location. Great hiking right by the grounds too. read more

I spent 7 nights at The Friendly Crossways while attending the Walden Woods Project Institute and I had a peaceful experience. The rooms are clean, great staff, excellent WiFi connection, large and organized kitchen, natural environment and very secure. I will certainly be back! Thank you, Friendly Crossways Retreat Center. read more

(This is on behalf of members of the retreat planning team of Moishe Kavod House) We had our annual retreat at Friendly Crossways. It was a wonderful place for our community to come together, be out of the city, and relax! Mary Helan was SOO very very helpful in for months in advance of the retreat, during the retreat and post retreat. She was wonderful to work with and extremely patient. The facility was beautiful and allowed for a variety of activities, including a huge outdoor field! Overall, it was a wonderful weekend, and we really enjoyed the space. read more

i came here for a retreat last weekend and was really quite pleased with the accommodations. Though there were 50+ of us on the trip, I never once had to wait to use a bathroom or a shower. The dorming facilities were clean and well-maintained, the common areas were sizable, able to be air conditioned, and the owner, Mary Helen, is a beekeeper with on-site bees (aka on-site fresh honeycomb mmmm). Quick tips: ~If you want to go for a run/walk, there are definitely places to do it. I'd looked up the Black Pond Trail to squeeze in a run, but that path is meant for woody hiking, not a jog. I wouldn't venture through here unless I had on long pants/long sleeves for tick protection. ~Make sure you bust out the serious business bug spray for an evening bonfire - those mosquitos do not mess around! read more

We held a weekend family reunion at Friendly Crossways and it was absolutely wonderful. Unlike a formal hotel, this was like a huge campy home where little family groups clustered around the fireplace, sat together in the living room, perched on the bunks in the dorm rooms, played touch football in the yard in the dark, stood in the foyer to chat and hung out in the lower game room, meeting, greeting, playing games and catching up. There was lots of bonding and relaxing while our families got to know eachother and reunited. The food was such a surprise, I was expecting solid camp style food - no, this was decadent, scrumptuous and really impressively delicious. Mary Helan is a true chef, not to mention doing nearly everything else in this family-run operation. (Her honey is out of this world!) We combined our family reunion with our wedding at the nearby Harvard UU Church and booked their Fellowship Hall for our reception. What a perfect setting and feeling to blend our two families. We had a ball! Harvard is gorgeous, the UU Church is perfect, and Friendly Crossways provided the homey base for it all. For some guests, we booked rooms at the nearby Holiday Inn in Boxborough. That worked out well too. We highly recommend Friendly Crossways for friendliness, beauty, and the wonderfully nourishing environment, not to mention her amazing chocolate mousse! YUM!!! read more

We had our wedding here this past weekend (Oct 2021). We had 30 people and was everything we could have asked for. The micro wedding package fit our needs perfectly. The ceremony space is gorgeous, with so many beautiful spots for pictures. Dinner under the tent was delicious, Mary Helan the chef-owner made an incredible meal, much of it sourced from her garden and orchard. We loved Friendly Crossways especially for the retreat center which enabled us to host all of our guests who chose to spend the night with us, we moved to the fire pit after our reception and got to put off clean up until the morning. We got to be present with our guests and we had an absolutely perfect night. I can't thank Mary Helan and her team enough. They were very responsive via email and answered all my questions, making suggestions and offering insight that helped us plan our day. I would recommend Friendly Crossways to anyone, planning big or small. read more

I came here for a retreat about a month ago with some student leaders and organizations at my school. For being seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it's got a wonderful woodsy vibe and great caretakers. Friendly Crossways is a family-owned conference center in what used to be a farm about 50 years ago. Our host, Mary, took care of all our meals (home cooked). The facilities themselves are very clean and has that cottage feel - our sleeping area was a set of cots and bunkbeds that seemed to come out of a camp magazine. Very cozy and comfortable place to bond and do what you need to do during a retreat or conference. read more

The family that runs this retreat and conference center are warm and welcoming. There was little that they won't do to accommodate us when I was helping to plan a ladies' retreat here. Very homey and warm atmosphere. The meals were prepared and cooked on site and each were awesome and delicious. The Turners are great people and I'm a big fan of theirs. read more

From the very beginning Mary Helen and Keith made us feel welcome and excited to have our wedding on their property. They were accommodating to all of our requests, including our wedding meal of pulled pork and mac and cheese. There is so much room for the bridal party to stay on site, and additional guests as needed. As our friends are from all over the country, it was perfect to be able to have everyone together from Friday-Sunday. Keith also went above and beyond to make sure that a very important light fixture was hung in the tent. Words cannot express our gratitude for making our day perfect! read more

Thank you for a wonderful stay! Our women's retreat greatly appreciated the delicious food, warm hospitality, and beautiful environment of Friendly Crossways. read more

My husband and I got married in August 2013 and we could not be happier that we chose Friendly Crossways. Mary Helan and Keith (owners, caterers, grill-masters, lovely people) were so great to work with. We wanted a relaxed, outdoor wedding with plenty of space for our guests. We had 150 people who fit easily on the lawn for the ceremony and in the tent for the reception. Mary Helan catered the meal which was INCREDIBLE. We had tomato-corn pie and grilled chicken with mango-cilantro salsa and a number of delicious sides. We had a fun bonfire at the end of the ceremony and about 40 or so of our guests were able to stay over in the house. I can't recommend this venue highly enough! read more

Friendly Crossways was everything we could have imagined and more for a perfect wedding weekend. The setting is gorgeous and will make any weather situation magical. Our friends enjoyed the hostel and land so much that we plotted ways to come back as a group when they are off-season. Our parents had wonderful long conversations with the staff during the day and late night when things were not hectic. The fire circle surrounded by loved ones to start the weekend and to end the wedding helped make it all a dream. For planning, Mary Helan, Keith, and Lisa were very helpful and communicative on all details and all the various questions that came up along the way. By this point in their history, they are very experienced and handled a lot of details that made the important event smooth including building a beautiful and highly functional bar setup. On the day of, Keith was available to troubleshoot a leaky situation with our friends due to heavy morning rain. For catering, Mary Helan created a vegan/vegetarian menu and made accommodations for several preferences and allergies. Many meat eaters, including my best man, who joked about needing to bring his own meat, could not stop telling us how much they enjoyed the baked zucchini. Skip the traditional cake and go with pies made by Mary Helan, that is a command, not a suggestion :). For those looking to have a full weekend wedding and go rain or shine outdoors, this is definitely the spot to have it. There is a lot of DIY elements so be prepared to put in the effort and your design hats. We also could not have pulled off a successful event without the help of many friends pitching in, especially one who we had 100% trust in and acted as our liaison/coordinator and made sure things happened better than we could plan them. Go with Mary Helan for the catering, take advantage of using the kitchen for group brunches, and make sure to ask Mary Helan and Lisa for their suggestions in planning and design as their feedback helped tweak things in better directions. read more

I recently stayed at Friendly Crossways for a weekend workshop retreat, and had a wonderful time. It was convenient -- I came up by commuter rail from Cambridge, and the station was only a few minutes' drive away from the center, and they'll send a shuttle for you. Plenty of parking for those driving up. The food was incredible, even though it was prepared for 50 of us at a time. Healthy, fresh, delicious, but still indulgent (there were almost always fresh-baked cookies after lunch and amazing home-made whipped cream-topped crumbles or some such for dinner). Mary was extremely accommodating (and positive and attentive) towards the various dietary restrictions in our group. The lodgings were homey and comfortable. If you're looking for fancy hotels, then this is not going to be your style (most of the rooms use shared bathrooms, for example, and most of the beds are twin beds, and we cleared our own dishes), but it's by no means spartan: it's very pretty and rustic and cozy and clean, with unique quilts on all the beds and spacious comfy shared common areas and expansive grounds (lawns and woods) for walking/running/exploring. I really felt that the space and the somewhat motherly staff helped encourage a comfortable, family-like aura over our whole weekend experience. read more

My fiance and I planned to get married in Italy but had to cancel our plans due to COVID. We decided to keep our original wedding date and reached out to Friendly Crossways as a backup plan. It turned out to be the best decision ever! Our wedding was absolutely perfect. We don't even want to think of it as a plan b because it was everything we could have dreamed of. Mary Helan was amazing at helping us find a way to get married safely without sacrificing the experience. We were able to have a wonderful weekend with our immediate family filled with love, joy, and the most delicious food we've every tasted. Mary Helan, Keith, and the entire staff was amazing and made us feel so comfortable, safe, and right at home. They are so talented and welcoming - by the end of the weekend they felt like family. Mary Helan is so fun to work with, it is like talking with an old friend. She is also an amazing cook and was able to accommodate vegetarian, gluten free, and meat loving family members without compromising flavor or variety. We could not have asked for a better experience, especially given the circumstances. We absolutely recommend Friendly Crossways and can't say enough good things about them! read more

We had an amazing wedding weekend at Friendly Crossways. The setting is absolutely stunning. The forest, fields, and spacious grounds are beautiful. The inn is unique, charming, and elegant. We can't stress enough how meaningful and special it was to have so much time and space to host our family and close friends at the inn. Our actual wedding was spectacular but we were most pleasantly surprised by the quieter moments of playing cards late in the evening, toasting marshmallows, and just talking and building new relationships across our families. You can get married just about anywhere but at Friendly Crossways you're given the chance to live out your values of putting relationships first. Beyond just the format of having this wonderful space for the whole weekend, the service, attention, and care that Mary Helan, Keith, and their staff put into their weddings is professional and personal. They are authentic, helpful, laidback while still attentive, and creative. Mary Helan's pies and the food from their catering company was the best food I've ever had from a wedding caterer and the process of deciding on everything was seamless. Their recommended tent and rental company is also amazing and easy to work with. We really have no complaints, big or small. We'd do it all over again the same way in a heartbeat. Thank you so much for making our wedding so memorable! read more

My husband and I LOVED Friendly Crossways, and so did all our guests. It was the perfect setting for our laid back and casual outdoor wedding. Everyone was wowed by how beautiful and idyllic the grounds were. It was a truly magical place to get married. We loved everything about it. The venue is beautiful and magical, Mary Helan and Keith are such wonderful people, and Mary Helan's food is to die for. We spent the entire weekend at Friendly Crossways with family and friends and the venue created a perfect setting to make our unique vision a reality. Mary Helan was a pleasure to work with. She was accommodating, communicative, and was invested in helping us achieve our unique vision. Let me break it down for you because there is so much to rave about! 1. The Venue: Friendly Crossways is beautiful, the lush green natural beauty of the open spaces and forest as well as the beautiful large farmhouse. And the property is very large. There were at least 3-4 different sites on the property we could choose to have the ceremony. They allow you to have your ceremony wherever you'd like on the property as long as it isn't too close to the honey bees :) Friendly Crossways met all the requirements my husband and I were looking for in a venue. We are from New England and wanted a location that was easy for friends and family to get to. We wanted to have a rural wedding, amongst farmland and forest and Friendly Crossways definitely fit the bill! We also wanted to rent a venue that had on-site lodging for our close friends. Friendly Crossways can accommodate up to 60ish people! The venue operates as a hostel when not used for weddings, so when I say accommodations, it is pretty rustic. There are 13 private rooms and two huge bunk rooms that can accommodate up to 35 people. All bathrooms are shared. Our friends were more interested in staying on site than having the luxuries of a hotel so it worked very well. The Holiday Inn is also about 10 minutes away, which is very convenient for guests. Another awesome feature of FC is they have a firepit for campfires! Keith made a campfire both nights which our guests loved. 2. Keith and Mary Helan: They were committed to helping us make our wedding day exactly how we envisioned it. We corresponded frequently in the months leading up to the wedding and Mary Helan was always quick to respond. When we weren't as good at responding to emails right away, she was understanding that wedding planning can be overwhelming, and kept reminding us that it shouldn't be stressful and we should be having fun planning our wedding with her. It was such a relief to work with someone who is as laid back as we are. Mary Helan listened to the vision we had for our wedding and helped us actualize it. It was awesome that she was invested in making our wedding feel as uniquely like "us" as a couple, as we were striving for it to be. 3. The Food: Mary Helan catered the wedding reception and the food was incredible. A lot of the ingredients came straight from her garden and everything was fresh. My husband is a vegetarian and she has great vegetarian options, he was very satisfied. She also made delicious pies, using blueberries from her blueberry bushes! She provided us with a very large and diverse menu to pick and choose from and was open to trying new dishes if we wanted anything specific. At the last minute she emailed to tell me she was modifying the ingredients slightly so that she could use even fresher ingredients from her garden! When we were leaving on Sunday she surprised us with an incredible blueberry pie she made just for my husband and I to take with us on our mini-moon in Maine. She could not be more thoughtful. If I could I'd give more than 5 stars! read more

My husband and I knew as soon as we saw Friendly Crossways, that this was the only wedding venue for us. We loved that we could add our own personal touches on everything and that we could spend the entire weekend with family and friends. Mary Helen and Keith were great, helping us work out all of the little details so things could come together smoothly. Even when it rained during our ceremony, they did everything they could to make our outdoor ceremony work and keep our guests as dry as possible. We also had Mary Helen cater, and the food was delicious! All of their staff was fun, friendly and professional. We could not have asked for a better place to get married! read more

This charming hostel is rustic and cozy. Honestly, if you want typical hotel amenities...go to a hotel. But if you are seeking a clean, warm, self-catering, self-cleaning hostel experience, this is as good as it gets. Mary was a wonderful host and my students were very happy. We ran this trip on a course budget and I asked my students "would you rather come back here or go to double occupancy rooms in a hotel" The answer was unanimous....we will be back to Friendly Crossways! My students appreciated the composting, recycling, water saving green features. We rented sheets and they were crisp and clean. The beds were comfortable! I needed an emailed receipt to keep the accountants happy and Mary was very happy to oblige. Great service; great location; help finding local food; menus; directions. What more could we want? Looking forward to next year. read more

We had our wedding at Friendly Crossways at the end of May, and it was an overwhelming success! Mary Helan, and Keith, were the ultimate hosts and were as accommodating, flexible, and supportive as could be. They approached the planning of the event like experienced professionals, but also made us feel like family. They clearly had the success of our event foremost in their mind, and they gave their input and guidance wherever it would be helpful. The venue and grounds are beautiful, and Mary Helan and Keith take great pride in overseeing all of the details. The recommended outside purveyors, like tent supplier and liquor store, also brought a welcome level of experience and familiarity working at Friendly Crossways. Mary Helan is also the head chef, and she provided the food for our reception, and it was delicious! Our guests had nothing but compliments about the food and service, and she really treats the event and guests like a gracious host welcoming folks into her home. She oversees her food staff and makes sure everything runs smoothly, while Keith oversees the general facility staff and makes sure everything is in order, looking and running great. Many of our guests stayed at Friendly Crossways, which really made the whole wedding weekend into an especially relaxed, comfortable, affordable, and extended gathering. It was really a pleasure having the wedding at Friendly Crossways, and the rustic charm, and natural beauty made for a truly special event. We highly recommend Friendly Crossways! read more

Friendly Crossways was the most wonderful place to have a wedding! My husband and I got married there this past summer, and we could not have asked for a more perfect location and venue. It was so great to have the hostel exclusively for the entire weekend. We had our rehearsal dinner right there at FC on Friday, and the wedding was Saturday evening, and then we had a brunch on Sunday morning, and Mary Helan and Keith were so helpful and accommodating and flexible the entire time. We enjoyed our rehearsal dinner on their beautiful front porch, and had a great evening at the fire pit both Friday and Saturday after the wedding. We had a very DIY wedding, and it was perfect having Friday afternoon, and all Saturday to set up. It made the entire setting up process so much more relaxed and enjoyable than it would have been at a traditional venue where we only had 6-8 hours. Because of this, on the day of the wedding I was extremely relaxed and calm, which is what every bride needs on the day of their wedding. They were so helpful of special requests, and they really try to make the entire experience relaxed and carefree for the couple. All of the staff were tremendous and went above and beyond the call of duty. The food was incredible, Mary Helan is an amazing chef, and she truly does not made a bad dish. Our wedding day was absolutely perfect, and FC was the perfect spot for an outdoor, countryside wedding celebration. I would recommend Friendly Crossways to anyone who wants a beautiful wedding that you will remember for the rest of your life! read more

Let me preface this by saying the location is very nice, clean and comfortable. I booked my stay there in late March for a June arrival. I have a special needs autistic son and wanted a home like atmosphere instead of a motel/hotel even though it was farther away from the city. We were checked in and settled on Tuesday night. I was informed the next morning that a reservation had been placed AFTER ours for "Exclusive Use" of the whole building and we had to leave. The hostel owner said that she would pay "at her cost" a motel in Ayer ( 8-10 miles further away from her location and farther away from Boston). I had to agree because what else were we supposed to do? I was at her mercy. This "place" her daughter transported us to is a run down motel with constant train travel, loud traffic noises, and the first night a drunk man tried to get into our hotel room. I also had to rent a car at an additional $200 cost (gas, insurance, and rental rate). We also had no access to a kitchen. My autistic son is so upset! Not to mention this room rents for $50 a night which is far less then what I paid at the hostel!! Update-I found out after I posted a bad review on the hostels Facebook page that she blatantly lied. There was no "Exclusive Use" party that needed the hostel. They thought that my Autistic Son would be "overwhelmed" at their hostel so they thought it would be in HIS best interest to not stay there! Obvious discrimination! read more